So how have I been occupying myself, you ask. Well, apart from the aforementioned snoozing (I think I must have been a hibernating creature in a former life) I have done a few things. Shopping for Christmas presents took up a lot of time, although a lot of it was done online this year. However did we manage in the days before online shopping? It's so painless - spend tons of money in the blink of an eye and then parcels arrive at your door as if by magic. This was followed by wrapping sessions which I have to admit are a bit of a bore. Several hours of my life I can never get back. Then I cooked my little socks off all through the festive season and hopefully managed to satisfy the ever hungry mouths belonging to my son and son-in-law. Yesterday, however, we took down the cards, decorations and Christmas tree. This took approximately eighteen minutes and was a lot quicker than it took to put them up. Now, like Mother Hubbard's cupboard, everywhere seems bare.
On the sewing front, I made some lovely new curtains for the guest room and a bag as a present. Felting wise I discovered a really exciting technique at a workshop with Mandy Nash who is really a jewellery designer but teaches felting as a sideline! At our December Funky Felters meeting she showed us some wonderful German woollen fibres that are terrifically hard wearing and strong but which felt really easily. We did a 2D piece of slashed felt and I can't wait to do some more. I've put a picture of my effort below:
It consists of 16 layers of fibres with a plastic resist sandwiched in the middle of them to allow you to slash through the top eight layers to reveal the fibres underneath. I absolutely loved the technique and have lots of ideas of things I want to have a go at.
I was originally going to do this post ages ago and entitle it Hole in One. That was because I had just read a novel at one sitting about a detective called Harry Hole. However, I failed to do that and have now read several more. Hole in Six doesn't have quite the same ring but they are such a good read. They are written by a Norwegian author called Jo Nesbo and are brilliantly written crime thrillers about a detective, Inspector Harry Hole (say Hole-a) of the Oslo police. Because they have been translated in the wrong order I didn't read them chronologically but I would recommend them if you are a fan of Ian Rankin, Stig Larsson etc.
For Christmas, my husband bought me (with a little help) two brilliant textile books. The first, by Maggie Grey (link to blog) called Dissolvable Delights, is about sewing with dissolvable film and I am itching to have a go at this. In July, I am booked to go on a workshop with Lynda Monk called Exploring Creative Surfaces at the Quilt Association's Minerva Centre in LLanidloes (thanks Georgina!) so I also got her book - Fabulous Surfaces - which has got me really excited. Only another six months to wait!
The weather is so dull and gloomy, I've not been out and about much. I have, however, discovered the joys of pinning! Why have I not used Pinterest before? It's a brilliant way of collecting together related ideas so that you can compare them with each other. If you haven't tried it, here's a link to my boards .
If you've stuck it out this far - well done!! Thanks for reading.
